How I Afford NYC Living On $17K A Year | Millennial Money

I'm going to give a little acceleration here okay continue what were you going to say  the looming stressor of making sure that I have   a sustainable living is definitely real I'll be  back but I would much rather take that stressor   over the stress of sitting down and doing  something that I don't like every single   day and it becomes monotonous I'll do the  end of a mon now each and every day is very   different from one another every day feels like an  adventure which is extremely fun to me hi I'm Max   Gallow I'm 28 years old living in Brooklyn New  York and in 2023 I made $117,000 working as an actor and welcome to Millennial no money most  of my income came from AC it didn't last too   long we went on a strike and I had to use some  of the unemployment benefits and then some of   it also came from working at an exotic car  dealership and those are my three sources of income I did not like that job it made me  feel like the bad guy at times where I had   to do what the company wanted and not  necessarily what I would have liked to do I'm not not actually reading this book I'm  just looking at it it's a good book though   Power of Habit I was saving a good amount  and it was very scalable I probably could   have put a deposit on a home but I wanted  to take my shot I wanted to try to follow   my dreams because I knew that if I tried later  in life I don't know if I would have as much   momentum as I do now and I could always go  back to a more traditional path if I needed to that was actually really grateful I really tried  to tell myself after the insurance job that I   really wanted to prioritize doing things that are  fun and enjoyable and that I would do for free and   get paid for them welcome to P1 Exotics this is  my survival job like a lot of actors have this is   our storage facility where we're storing some of  the cars that we have here and this is a Ferrari 355 this is about 400 or 450,000 you can see the aerodynamics the wind  and the air would go through the door so while   working for the car dealership I would get $20  an hour which was pretty good at least for me   in terms of like the fun that I was having but  I put that sort of on the back burner because   it would require me to go back and forth from New  York to New Jersey that becomes a lot but still   very much worth it to do it once in a while one  thing that I I have noticed uh which is very odd   especially for being in the income bracket that  I'm in I have a Honda Civic that I drive around   and I've gone to like some of the same places  and I've been treated extremely differently   if I pulled up somewhere in a Lamborghini or  Ferrari you're treated like royalty if you're   in a Honda Civic or anything normal you'll  go very much under the radar um people have   no interest in paying attention to you and it's  a little offputting [Music] My Lifestyle hasn't   really changed too much which is probably why  I'm spending more than I'm making if you don't   want to spend money in New York City you pretty  much just have to like lay down inside because   everything that you do if you like go anywhere  it's going to cost you money I don't go out and   buy new things very often I like to spend my  money on EXP experiences rather than an item   it's definitely been difficult I've relied on  some of my savings to compensate for the losses   that I've had each month it's interesting because  to acrw that savings took like a few years but   it's also being dissipated over the course of a  few years so I don't feel too stressed by it and   then I put my camera right there and then this  is like for auditions I feel pretty good about   paying my bills at least right now I know I don't  have a huge safety net but it does feel good that   I at least have something there and I know that at  any time I could go in the corner to Starbucks or   any sort of place and get a job that's going  to meet my expenses cuz they're relatively low hello welcome to my tiny little apartment um  this is my tiny room I have a little editing set   up here I ended up getting a really good deal on  this place it's supposed to be around 3,000 but I   ended up getting about $1,000 off per month I  went to a real estate agent and I said do you   know of anything that's going to be on the market  in about 3 months I'll take it as soon as the Last   Tenant leaves so that way you have no downtime and  you're not missing out on like a few month's rent   when the apartment's sitting there and I said if  you could pass that savings along to me I would   love it and they went for [Music] it frugality  is really hard sometimes when you're trying to   be healthy a lot of the cheaper foods are not  very good for you I will go to the grocery store   or farmer's market and see something that's  relatively inexpensive that you have to cook yourself I didn't buy the bmwm Roadster with an  investment mindset I bought it just because I was   not really that happy at the insurance company I  was trying to mitigate that by buying myself like   a fun little sports car it was actually not that  expensive when I bought it it was around $10,000   but since then it's nearly doubled in value  I never want to sell the BMW I would like to   keep that forever and have it be a part of my  collection in the future if I had to I would   to put an extra $188,000 towards my dreams but I  would much rather go out and get a part-time job   that helps me sustain [Music] myself when I was  in class surrounding acting like it felt really   really good I was like I would love to do this  for free let alone if someone eventually decides   to pay me for it it also felt like therapeutic  do good good good I think a lot of us have like   played in an imaginary way when we're kids and  that's what it kind of feels like as an adult   so it felt really cool and I wanted to do more  of that I've been writing and working towards   like a few different things I would say I am  happier now than when I was working for the   insurance company I feel hopeful that something  great might just be around the corner I think a   lot of actors feel that way so I don't want to be  delusional with the southern accent is that row   right we're doing the last one last certainly not  least one thing I think people don't necessarily   understand about actors or artists especially  from like a point of view of someone who maybe   has a corporate job or isn't into the Arts is  that it's a way of life and this is a really   difficult path to take but for artists it's not  as much of a choice as you think it is we don't   really feel whole we don't really feel good  unless we're expressing ourselves and that's   really hard to do especially when you're not  being paid for it and sometimes don't even   have the outlet to do it well like when you're  when you finish a model like one of the first   things I usually ask is like you know left your  own devices what would you do differently or what   would you want to adjust yeah I was planning  on having a good amount of work booked myself   a vacation to five different countries then the  strike came so I was out of work and also taking   a trip which felt very weird to me because I was  now going on something that was Leisure and fun   and knowing that when I come back I have a lot  of figuring out to do because there's going to   be nothing there is no plan B I will succeed  as an actor um I don't know to what length I   will succeed I don't know if I'll have my own  movie or my own TV show but I will become an   actor there's there's no option I will also  be con considering and pursuing other ways to   earn money and maybe another career path um that  will earn me a salary and not just like a gig um yeah some of the goals for this year is  to get an agent so that way I can get my   foot in the door for things that I currently  can't get my foot in the door for and also to   start writing a little bit more on some of  what I really want to make in the [Music] future I'm willing to go back to a 9 to5 but I  want something that has a good work life balance   that's been really hard for me to find I don't  want it to affect what is essentially a second   job because I will continue to pursue my career  as an actor I don't want to have anything conflict   with that but I do need the money so that's  why sometimes part-time work looks attractive   to me because you clock in and you clock out so I  definitely do have goals it's a long Pursuit it's   a marathon not a Sprint there may be a time when  I need to put my dreams on hold to go do something   and then come back but as of right now I'm going  to give myself probably about 2 more years to   really go full force in this and then I might  have to put it more so on a back burner every   choice that I've made has led me to this point  right now and I I don't regret it it's pretty great

Channel: CNBC Make It

Views: 120,179

Keywords: CNBC, CNBC Make It, Make It, Millennial Money, careers, business, businesses, entrepreneaurs, money, money management, personal finance, finances, financial news, business news, millennials, salary, budgeting, budgeting breakdown, learning how to budget, personal finances, financial education, side hustle, new york, nyc, new york city, brooklyn, acting, sag-aftra, actor, luxury cars

Id: PtLjacVrdFc

Length: 9min 43sec (583 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 26 2024